CCJ

February 2018

Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal

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64 commercial carrier journal | february 2018 PREVENTABLE or NOT? Merger mania messes up Doe's peaceful morning A t 6:30 a.m., forti ed by a cup of co ee, John Doe halted his north- bound tractor-trailer at a red light within the city limits of Jackson, Miss. e sun was shining, the multi-lane road straight ahead was dry and devoid of tra c, and only the songs of birds could be heard – Wait a minute! – until Doe detected the sounds of increasingly loud country mu- sic. Glancing at the lane to his right, Doe witnessed the high-decibel arrival of an elderly and battered Ford pickup truck. Replete with a rear-window gun rack and a good-ol'-boy driver wearing a John Deere cap, the pickup also was approaching the red tra c signal. A moment later, the light changed to green. Ac- celerating smoothly, Doe saw that the roadway was soon to become a single lane – his lane, he thought. In turn, the pickup's driver, aware that the right lane was ending, decided he didn't want to get stuck behind a slow 18-wheeler. Accordingly, the pickup accelerated heavily, pulled wildly in front of Doe's tractor and – WHAM!!! – caused $1,000 damage to the tractor's right front fender and $800 damage to the pickup's left rear fender. The long arm of the law quickly arrived and cited the pickup's driver for an unsafe lane change. Shortly therea er, Doe's safety director wrote him a warning letter for a preventable accident. e judgment was upheld by the National Safety Council's Accident Review Committee. NSC ruled that Doe should have expected the pickup would try to get ahead of him and that he should have watched his mirrors in case he needed to yield quickly. A pickup truck in the soon-to- end lane to the right of John Doe's tractor-trailer accelerated to avoid being cut off, but he merged too soon and hit the front of Doe's rig. Was this a preventable accident?

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